OTTAWA - A case of bad timing led to big delays in the investigation of the Air India bombing, the inquiry into the 1985 terrorist attack has been told.
The creation of Canada's spy agency less than a year prior to the bombing appeared to create confusion over the roles the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service should play in the investigation, commission head Justice John Major said Friday as a former CSIS director was giving testimony.
"It seems to me that the transition came at a bad time,'' Major interjected.
"You have this act of terrorism that destroys 331 people's lives, and CSIS and the RCMP appear to be at odds over what can be provided to whom on what basis.''
Major's observation elicited a two-word reply from Chris Scowen, CSIS's former deputy director of counter-terrorism, as he sat on the witness stand.
"Yes, sir.''
The probe is looking this week into the rocky relations between the Mounties and CSIS in the months following the June 1985 downing of Air India Flight 182, which took the lives of 329 people.
Two others died when a second bomb, destined for another Air India flight, exploded the same day at an airport in Tokyo.
A number of memos tabled at the inquiry indicated there was frustration among the hierarchy of both security services over perceived delays in relaying information that would aid in the RCMP investigation. There was also concern by some at CSIS that sources might be compromised should the Mounties be given all the information that was requested.
The CSIS Act came into effect in July 1984, taking security intelligence gathering away from RCMP control.
In the months that followed creation of the spy agency, there was confusion between the two services as they sorted out jurisdiction and information-sharing rules, Scowen acknowledged.
Information sharing would have gone more smoothly at the time had the two services still been working as one, he said.
"The (RCMP) security service would be directed by the (RCMP) commissioner or the deputy commissioner, who would contact the director general of the RCMP service,'' Scowen explained.
"And that would be that.''
